What should I do if I find out I have liver cancer? Introduction to 5 liver cancer treatment methods

Experts say that after contracting liver cancer, especially in the late stage, it will bring great harm to the patient's health. At this time, the patient will experience weight loss, decreased physical fitness, severe abdominal pain, edema, bleeding, and even shock. In order to avoid the occurrence of these late symptoms, early detection and early treatment must be done. So, what are the hazards of nasopharyngeal cancer? What should we do after abnormal conditions occur? Experts say that timely examination and treatment are necessary. Let's take a closer look at the details below.

The harm of not treating liver cancer in time

1. Decreased immunity

Patients may experience serious problems such as anorexia, poor appetite, indigestion, weight loss, decreased physical fitness, decreased resistance and immunity, etc.

2. Cause abdominal pain

Liver cancer can cause patients to experience varying degrees of abdominal pain, and even shock, leading to death.

3. Lower limb edema

Liver cancer can cause patients to have severe ascites symptoms, and the patient's ascites will compress the veins and lymph of the lower limbs, resulting in poor venous and lymphatic return in the lower limbs, thus causing lower limb edema.

4. Bleeding tendency

Liver cancer can also cause patients to show a more obvious bleeding tendency. Patients will have problems such as bleeding gums and subcutaneous ecchymosis. In more serious cases, it can also cause gastrointestinal bleeding. Gastrointestinal bleeding is a very important cause of death in liver cancer patients.

5. Secondary infection

The late complications of liver cancer are caused by long-term consumption, low resistance, and decreased white blood cells after radiotherapy or chemotherapy, which makes it easy to develop various infections, such as pneumonia, sepsis, intestinal infection, fungal infection, etc. 4. Hepatic encephalopathy: About 1/3 of patients die from it.

What should you do if you find out you have liver cancer? Experts say there are two main steps: good examination and targeted treatment to control the disease in time. So what kind of examinations do you need for liver cancer? Common examination items for liver cancer:

1. Alpha-fetoprotein test (one of the most reliable methods for diagnosing hepatocellular carcinoma)

2. Blood enzyme test

3. Ultrasonic testing

4. CT detection

5. Selective celiac artery or hepatic artery angiography

6. X-ray detection

What should I do with liver cancer? There are currently five main treatments for liver cancer. Let's take a look:

1. Surgical treatment

(1) General condition of the patient: ① The patient is in good general condition, with no serious damage to heart, lung and kidney functions, and is estimated to be able to tolerate surgery; ② The liver function is well compensated, or only slightly damaged, and is classified as Grade 1 according to the liver function classification; or is Grade 2, and after short-term liver protection treatment, the liver function recovers to Grade 1; ③ There is no extensive extrahepatic metastatic tumor.

(2) Radical resection can be performed in the following cases: ① Single micro or small liver cancer; ② Single large or giant liver cancer growing outside the liver, with a relatively smooth surface, relatively clear surrounding boundaries, and less than 1/3 of the liver tissue destroyed by the tumor; ③ Multiple tumors, with less than 3 tumor nodules, and confined to one lobe or segment of the liver.

2. Ultrasound or CT-guided percutaneous tumor puncture pain relief treatment

Under the guidance of B-ultrasound or CT, percutaneous puncture of the tumor, radiofrequency, microwave, cryotherapy or injection of anhydrous alcohol, and local physical therapy such as in vitro high-frequency focused ultrasound. These methods are suitable for patients with small tumors that cannot or are not suitable for surgical resection, especially those with early tumor recurrence after liver resection. Its advantages are: definite efficacy, safety and simplicity, and few side effects. Some patients can achieve good treatment results.

3. Chemotherapy

In principle, systemic chemotherapy is not performed. Depending on the specific situation of the patient, selective regional chemotherapy can be used, such as perfusion through the hepatic artery, portal vein or liver isolation, which may improve the efficacy and reduce the toxic side effects of chemotherapy, and is expected to improve the efficacy. What is valuable is that selective regional chemotherapy after surgery does have an effect on preventing recurrence, which has been confirmed by many parties.

4. Radiation therapy

Radiotherapy is a comprehensive treatment mainly for patients with good general condition, good liver function, no cirrhosis, no jaundice, ascites, no hypersplenism and esophageal varices, relatively localized tumors, no distant metastasis, and who are not suitable for surgical resection or have recurrence after surgery.

5. Biological therapy

Biological treatment is mainly immunotherapy. It has been widely confirmed that liver cancer patients have low immune function, which also suggests the possibility of immunotherapy and biological treatment. Although biological treatment has shown good prospects, there are still many difficulties and problems. Sometimes, although a variety of biological response modifiers are used and several immune indicators are expected to return to normal, cancer cells cannot be completely eliminated or even the development of tumors cannot be stopped.